Like, you guys cast it, thinking, "Oh, monster from another world. By all means, come on in."

So you messed up.

It's a little bit bigger than messing up.

Than what? Than whatever blew up the entire third year class?

There's a bad story every few years around here.

I'm not sure that's avoidable.

Okay. And if you confess--

Then I'm done.

Yeah.

Uh-- [scoffs]

Bef-- [inhales deeply, exhales] Before I got here, I was in the hospital. I have--or I had-- I don't know, this thing that I couldn't shake where I felt like because nothing was ever not gonna be pointless and empty, then, uh, why go on?

And then I... got here, and... it's amazing I survived as long as I did not knowing that I was a Magician.

I can't go back.

So, okay.

There's a spell if they question you so they can't read your minds.

I'll write it down.

It's bulletproof.

Thank you.

[sniffs]

Now, can you just help me live with myself?

Okay, I'm gonna tell you something deep and dark and personal now.

Ready? Good. I killed someone.

What?

I was 14. He was this--

He beat me up.

So I'm walking on the street eating a candy bar, 'cause by then I already ate my feelings at a professional level, and I saw him crossing over.

I thought you might be familiar with some pretty crazy sh1t since you're family.

Yeah, no, my family's not--

Right.

Yeah.

I get it. Mine too.

Pointless and toxic.

[both chuckle]

[sniffles]

I didn't really learn magic formally as a kid.

I heard you never got invited to take the Brakebills entrance exam.

How'd you even find it? You walked right in.

It's not that hard.

[chuckles]

We're in the Bermuda Triangle of Upstate New York.

How'd you get through though?

The wards around the school are fingerprinted.

You're a stranger.

My parents have alumni keys.

Which are supposed to be charmed with McNaughton's Unstealable.

I stole one.

Hmm.

Um, I just wanted to go to school.

Why do you care?

Curious.

Just 'cause--

I don't know.

I want to be your friend, I guess.

I don't feel like you do.

[scoffs]

I'm sorry, I should go. Thank you.

There has to be something here.

Maybe the phone numbers are, like, a code or--

That's too easy.

Come on.

Chop chop.

[ominous music]

♪

There has to be something. I mean--

Oh!

[screams]

[whimpers]

[laughs]

[groans]

[panting]

[panting]

Is it-- is it--

Dead? Mm-hmm, yeah, but it was already dead, so I don't know.

Oh, my God.

Jesus Christ, they're gonna kill us.

Why did I sign up for this? This is--

Shh, shh. Stop it, stop, okay?

Okay, okay.

It's dead dead now, I think.

I don't know.

[screams] [pants]

Calm down. Jesus, guys, it's me.

Pete, is that you?

Howdy.

Wow.

Pete, that's definitely a good look for you-- an improvement.

Why don't you join us in here?

I think Marina misses you.

Just let us out.

Don't be stupid. You have to find your way out.

So this is a test, another test.

Look, if you can't get through this, you definitely can't deal with what it takes to do what we do.

Do you want magic or not, Julia?

Did you look everywhere?

Fast, frostbite's gonna set in.

Asshole. sh1t.

What did that mean?

Where didn't we look? Where didn't we look?

Wait.

Huh.

"Une chaleur temporaire."

Temporary warmth.

[pop music playing]

♪

[sighs] I was just researching.

Reading a kids' book?

What do you want from me? I--

Jesus, we could not have screwed up that spell worse, and we can't take it back, and-- you don't even like me.

I don't know you.

I don't know you either, except that we summoned some kind of killer mothman from another world.

Yeah, there is that.

♪

You should hate me right now. I dragged you into this.

It's just you showed up with that sigil on your hand, and it was the same one that was on the book that I needed, and my brother-- his spirit, I mean, sent you to help me contact him.

So, I'm not really sure that that's what happened.

The thing on my hand, this--the sigil, it appeared when I was dreaming, of "Fillory."

Okay.

In my dream, the sigil on my hand, it--it came from Jane.

Chatwin. From "Fillory."

Look, honestly, Quentin, growing up, the last thing I wanted to do was read fantasy.

[sighs]

Okay. What if, um... what if "Fillory" is real?

And I know that you think that this is just about Charlie, but I think-- I think maybe it's bigger, because what came through that mirror instead of Charlie, it didn't exactly grow up in the neighborhood.

Okay.

So what if it came from, like, actual "Fillory"?

That's a leap, Quentin.

I mean, there are other worlds out there, but "Fillory" is just fiction.

Oh, no, the Chatwins, they're real.

They lived next door to the author.

He based the characters on them.

Jesus, how do you not know any of this?

Is there someplace on campus we can to go to watch a video?

Yeah.

Good.

Narrator: After living next door to the Chatwins for years and writing stories for young Jane and Martin, when Martin Chatwin disappeared, Christopher Plover was devastated.

This was just one of a series of painful events that haunted Christopher Plover.

It suffused his work with a sense of melancholy and loss, And the mystery of Martin Chatwin's disappearance was never solved.

Narrator: Even more mysterious, Martin's sister Jane disappeared the following year.

That's a lot of disappearing.

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of why people are obsessed with the books, 'cause you have these kids walking into clocks, into other worlds, and they're based on real kids, and the real kids, uh, vanished.